


Old, New, Orange, Blue

by The_Shame_Basement



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, Fluff, M/M, Multi, Nice Suits, Restaurant Mishaps
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:02:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22052980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Shame_Basement/pseuds/The_Shame_Basement
Summary: Jane and Jake take their young new beau out on a nice dinner date!
Relationships: Dave's Bro | Beta Dirk Strider/Grandpa Harley | Beta Jake English, Grandpa Harley | Beta Jake English/Nanna Egbert | Beta Jane Crocker/Dave's Bro | Beta Dirk Strider, Nanna Egbert | Beta Jane Crocker/Grandpa Harley | Beta Jake English
Kudos: 21
Collections: Polyswap Winter Promptfest - Dawn Edition





	Old, New, Orange, Blue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sartorially](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sartorially/gifts).
  * In response to a prompt by [Sartorially](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sartorially/pseuds/Sartorially) in the [Polyswap_Winter_Promptfest_Dawn_2019](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Polyswap_Winter_Promptfest_Dawn_2019) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> Married couple in a happy open relationship take their weird younger boyfriend to dinner and the movies.. He's delightfully strange the entire time. Hands are held. Cheeks are kissed. He is a nuisance in a perfectly tailored suit and spray-painted Converse.
> 
> happy BIRTHDAY!!

Outside a Houston high-rise, as the sun’s kissing the horizon and painting every brick in a vivid orange cast, a gray sedan pulls up to the curb. Jacob English and his wife Jane are fixing to go on a perfectly splendid date tonight; they’re all dressed for the occasion, with him in a fine suitcoat and bowtie, and her in a lovely powder-blue dress and lace shawl. But first, they’ve got an important stop to make.   
They’ve barely put it in park before the rear left door is opening. A younger man is sliding onto the seat, tush hitting leather hard enough to jolt the whole car. His voice, when he speaks, is low and accented and deadly serious.   
“We need to blow this pop stand, right now.”

They blow this pop stand, which is to say Jake steps hard on the gas and peels off from the curb, almost shifting the car into neutral by accident when he forgets he’s not driving stick-shift. Jane turns in her seat, giving the gentleman in the back a good once-over. His pale blonde hair is done up expertly, riding that perfect line between hundred-dollar-styling-job and bedhead. He’s got on a black suit that looks like Armani, and a crisp white shirt that looks like Brooks Brothers, and a pair of sneakers that look like he found them abandoned by the fence outside a railyard. He is staring at her with a sprawled-out posture like a cat, and with no expression on his face, and everything about him gives off an air of cold, wanton disregard. 

She, of course, beams sunnily at him and gives him a big thumbs-up, then turns back and leans in towards Jake, murmuring “oh, dear, he looks so dashing, he _really_ dressed up for us this time!” 

Jake tries to look back at him, but Jane’s soft hand on his cheek turns his head back to the road.   
The ride progresses pleasantly, with Jane’s chiming mezzo-soprano and Jake’s booming baritone underlaid with a deep, quiet, voice so laconic it almost acts as percussion. This isn’t unusual to any of them; the conversation trundles happily on, and by the time they pull up at their upscale restaurant of choice, both Jane and Jake are smiling and giddy. There is no perceptible change in emotion from the guy in the backseat. However, the instant the wheels stop moving, he’s out of the car and opening Jane’s door for her. 

* * *

Everything about the dinner’s setting _ought_ to lend itself to a perfect and lovely night out. The younger man insists on pulling out both Jake and Jane’s chairs for them, which he accomplishes by darting around the table so quickly the resulting breeze knocks several menus off the nearby table. He, of course, goes over to pick them up, and when a server comes over to help, the two of them end up in a weirdly intense exchange, with the young man going on for at least thirty seconds in his quiet, monotone voice about the nature of the establishment-customer relationship, and the things one ought to do in order to help that relationship run smoothly, and the look in the server’s eye when he approached him, and how he didn’t feel that confrontational tone was necessary, and how goddamn, cuz, it was his mistake, and wouldn’t it just be swell if a guy could be allowed to pick up three menus off the floor by his lonesome without feeling socially obligated to outsource the job to every poor Tom, Dick, and Larry who stumbles on by?

The silence is thick enough you’d need a chainsaw to cut it.   
Jane accomplishes this by standing up, giving her best Julia Child laugh, and slipping a crisp fifty-dollar bill into the hands of each hapless server who’d been attending the scene. She guides her young gentleman back to his seat with a touch at his back, and holds his hand over the table while looking at him very seriously. 

She purses her lips for a moment.   
“Dirk, dear, you’re out-of-sorts tonight.”  
He opens his mouth automatically to reply, and she reaches over and puts a finger to his lips.   
“Uh-uh, no talking your way out of this one, darling.” She watches as he kisses her fingertip and regards her with that same icy blankness. Her brows draw together.  
“Oh, Dirk. You’re nervous, aren’t you?”

A long beat of silence.   
“No.”  
Jake reaches over to take Dirk’s other hand, squeezing it reassuringly. “Come on, old chap. You can’t wool us over on this one. Tell Janey the truth.”  
“Tell us _both_ the truth,” she adds, and together, the both of them hold his hands and look at him with open concern on their faces. 

He takes all this in, filing it away in his mental dossier of Things That Are Happening Right Now (to be re-examined and fully processed at a later date), and takes some time to compose his response.   
As it happens, he didn’t really need all that time, because when he opens his mouth, an entirely unplanned sequence of words spills out. 

“Yeah, I’m nervous as all get-out. The two of you have reputations to uphold, and I can’t say as goin’ out in public with me is the most responsible thing towards that goal.”  
Both their faces, in unison, melt into pity and understanding, and something all soft and pathetic which Dirk would venture so far as to call _love_.

They lean over, one by one, to press a kiss to his high cheekbones, and neither of them says anything at first, but they don’t really need to. 

“It’s alright, love,” Jane murmurs after a moment. “We understand. To be honest, I’m nervous too.”  
Jake hums his assent, thumbing over Dirk’s knuckles in his own style of comfort. 

Dirk takes a deep breath. The uncomfortable, quivery tension between his shoulderblades eases a little.

Jane smiles gently.

“Besides, dear, even if it all goes pear-shaped, I’m still just an old lady who runs a joke store and loves two wonderful men. How bad could it get?”

“You’re fifty-three, and it could get pretty fucking bad.” She feigns shock, batting at Dirk’s wrist, and he allows himself the sliver of a grin. 

“Fine, yeah, alright. I’ll lay off.  
Now that that’s out of the way, can one of you explain to me what appetizers are? Not sure I understand the concept.”


End file.
